CAPTAIN Colin Milne, who gave evidence to MPs meeting in Aberdeen yesterday, has called for a legal hearing along similar lines to Lord Cullen’s probe into the 1988 Piper Alpha tragedy.

A HELICOPTER pilot yesterday backed his professional body in calling for a Piper Alpha-style inquiry before a judge to examine the safety of offshore flights.

Their call came hours before Captain Colin Milne gave evidence to MPs meeting in Aberdeen.

The transport committee heard from industry and workers representatives following last summer’s fatal chopper crash off Shetland.

Milne said a legal hearing along similar lines to Lord Cullen’s probe into the 1988 Piper Alpha tragedy in which 167 men died could explore the “amount of control exercised by the offshore helicopter transport regime”.

He said pilots wanted to operate to a “high minimum standard” under a regulator ensuring safety was not to be competed on.

The pilot said: “It shouldn’t take accidents and people dying for that to happen. We should not be learning the same harsh lessons again and again.”

Unite union regional organiser John Taylor said he believed there were commercial pressures in the industry.

But Bristow Helicopters director Mike Imlach said: “If I don’t have the full parameters of safety and crews on the aircraft we will not fly irrespective of commercial pressure we may receive from a client.”

The transport committee review was instigated after a CHC-operated Super Puma crashed in August, killing four offshore workers.

There have been 3.6million offshore flights in the North Sea in five years – half on controversial Super Pumas.